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Comment by poorjohnmacafee | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I sometimes feel like I'm at death's door when jogging outdoors. Myself and some Westerners I know haven't "adapted", even after years being here. The strategy is just always have ice water in hand if outdoors for prolonged time. I sometimes get laughed at for not adjusting to the heat, but I think it's just too much for some genetic lineages from outside tropics.

Unfortunately a large percentage of folks in HDB flats don't have AC, so I do fear for many citizens in Singapore. With global warming trends it should simply be a free or heavily subsidized utility here.

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After a car accident, I had to depend on public transport in the boondocks where my job required shuttling from site to site in very humid hot tropical weather. I thought I was going to die that first week.

One of the locals finally told me I couldnt just walk out of airconditioned low humidity offices into the street and roam around, without giving my body 10-15 minutes to recalibrate. So before setting out from air conditioned buildings, I would stand outside in the shade for a bit and then head out. And that made a big difference. I started sweating less and didnt feel humidity as much.

I've been thinking about this, and it's seeming like childhood exposure to prolonged heat and humidity may be what gives you the ability to handle it as an adult.

It's just an anecdote, of course, but there are notable examples of people i think should be from genetic backgrounds that could handle the heat that can't, and vice versa.

Without a reference handy to back this statement up I think there may indeed be epigenetic changes. Perhaps even more pronounced would be the experience of the mother in hotter environments during pregnancy.

I used to work construction and when I was a teenager I worked on farms growing up in the rural South.

If you work outside all day you adapt very quickly to it. During the adjustment period you are chugging water all the time but you eventually adjust. It's a circulation adaptation that's been observed with special forces recruits.

> If you work outside all day you adapt very quickly to it.

Sort of yes, sort of no. In some industries, those who do hard labour in heat have a terrible death rate from kidney disease. There is a lot in the news about this in relation to sugarcane workers. Eg: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/14/kidney-disease...

I'm in Denmark, when it gets 26 degrees here I drench my shirts in ice water and put in the freezer for a bit and then put on to cool down. I'm guessing, given what a wimp I am about the temperature, a few more degrees and I'm one of the first to die.

Always look on the bright side of death.

I'm thinking you must be Danish because of the Monty Python joke - Danes love that damn movie.

Unfortunately it looks like someone who didn't get it downvoted you. Welcome to HN!

I've lived in Australia and Norway. Your body adapts to ongoing temperatures. In Norway you're taking off your jumper as heads into double digits entering spring time. In Australian summer your putting on a jumper at 22 if there's a cold summer night.

We've literally be talking to Norwegian family about their nice 22 degree day at the beach while I was loading the fire place, they asked me the temperature, checked and was 22 also, though would have dropped later at night.

I find over 35 gets tough to do ongoing outdoor work. An hour or 2 then you need an hour or 2 to cool down. Hitting, 40c this is getting too hot.

Yeah, people don't understand that the human body is remarkably adaptable. Just need to stay in a place for a while (a few weeks to months). I've cycled to school ~10 kms everyday in 35-40° as a kid, came home to cool down instantly under a ceiling fan. Now in my current city I find 27+ too hot.

When you use AC during nighttime you never get adapted to the heat. Try slowly phasing it out.

That's contradictory to leading sleep scientists like Matthew Walker, Peter Attia, etc. which is clear about need for chilly environment for sleep quality, eg < 21C. Granted, sleep science isn't oriented towards the genetics of the tropics yet, but there's plenty of evidence about temperature and sleep quality for more northern genetics anyway.

I agree with the parent. Killing the AC for weeks on end really helped me acclimate to the local temperature.

I'm not saying it resulted in quality sleep (as a Canadian - I set the thermostat to 13 degrees in the winter when sleeping, and my ideal temperature in the summer is about 18 degrees) - but you get used to the outdoor climate reasonably quickly (in my case, about 4-6 months).

Is 18 degrees assuming a fairly warm duvet covers / blankets? When I was staying hostels the dorms would sometimes be air conditioned and only a sheet would be provided for cover, and I struggled to sleep in anything colder than 21, and I'd have had it up to 22-24 if I could.

Sort of - now that I live in Michigan, and re-acclimated to a northern climate, at 21 I have to sleep on top of blankets or I overheat (though, I will find that after a few hours, my body cools down while sleeping and I may pull a blanket overtop me). 18 + a normal duvet is perfection. Cool enough for blankets, but not so cold that I feel uncomfortable.

This is mostly a meditation on the fact that I used to be able to sleep in temperatures of 26-27 in Singapore. The human body (at least this one) can definitely acclimate to local environments given some time and exposure.

Of course - no acclimating whatsoever will help you if the wetbulb temperature gets up to 35. You are just dead unless you can find some active cooling at that point fairly quickly.

I don't think it is contradictory - that is the point of adaptation that you expose yourself to something that is not optimal and your body learns to handle it. Think of it as artificially changing the range of conditions needed for good sleep quality by training.

Weird. I slept just fine in 27-28 for years. Unless I had a cover anything cooler than that was uncomfortable.

Stop it with the genetics talk, unless you want to cite some research.

https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

Big factor is body fat, when I was very skinny I could take higher temperatures than 40pounds later. It made basically 5 celsius degrees difference of "quite nice and warm" vs "too hot to operate" temperature.

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